Spoilers Star Trek: Discovery 3x10 - "Terra Firma, Part 2"

[dinzy]

Rarely do I comment on other people's ratings, but this doesn't read like a 2.

It was basically a 9 or so until they didn't give me anything. But now I think it was better not to give the hint and will be pissed when the reveal it during the lead up to the s31 premiere, so they deserve to lose 7 pts

 

[DigificWriter]

My problem with Disco’s MU isn’t using it so much as ruining Lorca’s character by making it so he was only morally gray because he was from there, and putting it at a point on the story it really made no sense for the momentum.

The writers didn't 'ruin' Lorca's character because having him be from the Mirror Universe was the plan from the moment the character was created.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I like Section 31 I want a series of Space Nikita

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The writers didn't 'ruin' Lorca's character because having him be from the Mirror Universe was the plan from the moment the character was created.

Before they revealed he was from MU, he was a person in the Star Trek universe who believed given the magnitude of the threat the ends justified the means. It was interesting and subversive and made you really think about classical Roddenberrian morality.

Then it turned out, all of that was nonsense and you can only be morally grey if you're from the crazy beard universe and Lorca was just a beardie guy twirling his invisible mustache to overthrow the cartoon evil empress. Boo.

 

[fireproof78]

I mean, reading fan reactions I would say the expectation is that Federation is morally good no matter what. Less shades of gray, more black and white.

 

[Krog]

I strongly suspect that safe will be their course, whether it is the best story choice or not. So, Trek's relevance will be relegated back to nostalgia targeting without any largely movement in new directions.

You folks really think CBS would be churning a new series a year if they weren’t attracting new viewers...? You need a lesson in basic economics if so.

 

[DigificWriter]

Before they revealed he was from MU, he was a person in the Star Trek universe who believed given the magnitude of the threat the ends justified the means.

This is false.

Revealing Lorca to be from the Mirror Universe wasn't some arbitrary decision that the writers decided on out of the blue. It was a planned, slow build narrative decision that was seeded from the moment we first met the character in "Context is for Kings".

IOW, Gabriel Lorca was never going to be anything other than a character from the Mirror Universe.

 

[fireproof78]

You folks really think CBS would be churning a new series a year if they weren’t attracting new viewers...? You need a lesson in basic economics if so.

No, I think they are attracting new viewers. I think they will continue to play it safe in order to not risk either old or new.

 

[Jadeb]

You folks really think CBS would be churning a new series a year if they weren’t attracting new viewers...? You need a lesson in basic economics if so.

I don’t think there’s a way for us to know if they’re really bringing in significant numbers of new viewers or if the play is to keep Trekkies subscribed all year long.

I don’t question that Trek is the most valuable tentpole for All Access. Clearly, it’s a revenue driver for a service that doesn’t have much else. But do I get the sense that these shows are having a big cultural impact outside the existing fan community? Not really.

That’s not meant as a swipe at any of the All Access Trek shows. It’s just a function of how competitive the streaming landscape is.

 

[Odo]

It was a good episode, but I admit, the Guardian reveal being spoiled for me lessened my enjoyment just a tad bit. I like that they mentioned Denobulans (first mention outside of ENT I think).

Imagine if they set it post Mirror, Mirror and had Georgiou working to bring about Mirror Spock (Peck)'s vision!

 

[jackoverfull]

I don’t think there’s a way for us to know if they’re really bringing in significant numbers of new viewers or if the play is to keep Trekkies subscribed all year long

true, but I think it’s pretty obvious that the series are profitable, otherwise they wouldn’t keep renewing them and adding spinoffs.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

Before they revealed he was from MU, he was a person in the Star Trek universe who believed given the magnitude of the threat the ends justified the means. It was interesting and subversive and made you really think about classical Roddenberrian morality.

Then it turned out, all of that was nonsense and you can only be morally grey if you're from the crazy beard universe and Lorca was just a beardie guy twirling his invisible mustache to overthrow the cartoon evil empress. Boo.

Add to that Tyler's big reveal and for me they really ruined 2 very good characters with very interesting stories

 

[Discofan]

true, but I think it’s pretty obvious that the series are profitable, otherwise they wouldn’t keep renewing them and adding spinoffs.

Yes, that's one thing that we can be sure of.


Rule of acquisition number one: Entertainment without profit is no entertainment at all.

 

[TrekE]

A solid send off for Georgiu.

Disco episodes tend to be well acted and well produced, with good music and special effects, and this one was no different.

I gave the episode a mediocre score because of the story. I’ve always disliked the mirror universe episodes. I didn’t like it when DS9 would do one every season and I still don’t like them now. The insistence on using the mirror universe plot lines was part of the reason I was so lukewarm on this series for the first couple of seasons. This third season has been better until now. Maybe now with Phillipa gone, we’re done with the MU as a plot point??? One can only hope.

 

[AresB]

The way I remember the episode is in bold.

Thanks for the corrections, I should have read the episode recap more carefully.

 

[ananta]

I gave the episode a mediocre score because of the story. I’ve always disliked the mirror universe episodes.

Given that the original idea was to have Georgiou and Michael baking an apple pie together, I think we’re lucky they decided to go with the MU again!

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

There's a fan theory going around the there was never a Georgiou in the prime universe and the one we see at the start of season 1 before she is killed is the same Georgiou we all know as she was sent back in time to a point before the series to set stuff in motion.

 

[eschaton]

I've liked bits of every season.

I liked where I thought the show was going in the first half of season one. I could get around the amount of times we saw Klingons in Enterprise and have the Battle of the Binary Stars be the disastrous contact that set relations with them askew. I wasn't a fan of relating Burnham to Spock and Sarek's family and shoehorning her into that when it really didn't add anything. I definitely didn't feel that we needed to spend several episodes in the mirror universe and then rush into a finale to button up the Klingon conflict.

In the second season, I liked the mystery of the Red Angel and with bringing Pike over. I was less impressed with Control and the need to go back into Section 31.

For the record, I don't need everything to fit into canon to a tee, just in the broader strokes, but I never saw the need to place it in the timeframe between Enterprise and TOS when you had any time in the future to tell whatever story they wanted to. I'll never understand that decision. Discovery could've reached out to new and old fans without having to be at the behest of canon to appease the fans that were militant about it. But in a show carrying the name Star Trek, you also can't expect people not to be upset when you try and shoehorn your characters into the franchise they feel strongly about.

The biggest flaw I have seen in Discovery is the need to rush through the season and have a resolution that ties everything up and in that rush, it never reaches the best conclusion it could. Take this season: I don't need to see a resolution to The Burn or the Emerald Chain in totality. I'd hope to see building blocks to that point, but I don't need it to be all wrapped up.

Of course all of this is my opinion. I've been criticized in the past because I would have preferred the writers had gone different directions, that I should just admit that I "don't like Discovery," which isn't the case at all.

I really wanted the second half of Discovery's first season to be the "Sliders on a Starship" concept. The idea of a ship lost in time traveling through parallel universes in long form is something Trek hasn't done before, and would open up many new storytelling options.

I was also tremendously let down once they figured out that the spore drive was also a working time machine (since they accidentally jumped forward in time when returning to Prime) that they didn't try and jump back prior to the Battle of the Binary Stars. Or really, ever attempt time travel with the drive again. I dunno if the writers were idiots and didn't even think of the idea, or they just realized a working time machine ruins just about every scenario they could think of.

 

[Vger23]

There's a fan theory going around the there was never a Georgiou in the prime universe and the one we see at the start of season 1 before she is killed is the same Georgiou we all know as she was sent back in time to a point before the series to set stuff in motion.

It would be cool if something like this were true. I don’t know how you’d make it work though. She’d have to start at the academy as a much younger person.

 

[eschaton]

This is false.

Revealing Lorca to be from the Mirror Universe wasn't some arbitrary decision that the writers decided on out of the blue. It was a planned, slow build narrative decision that was seeded from the moment we first met the character in "Context is for Kings".

IOW, Gabriel Lorca was never going to be anything other than a character from the Mirror Universe.

This is demonstrably false.

Harberts explained that the writers knew from the start, when creator Bryan Fuller was first planning out the show's serialized storyline, that the inaugural season of Discovery would end up in the Mirror Universe. (Fuller eventually left the show due to creative differences with CBS, elevating Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg to showrunner status.) But at first, the writers planned for Lorca to be a hawkish captain given a chance to shine thanks to the Federation's war with the Klingon Empire. It was only after the writers began discussing why Lorca would be so skilled with warfare that they hit upon the idea that he'd secretly be from the militaristic world of the Mirror Universe.

It is true that by the time Jason Issacs was hired he knew the ultimate origin of his character. But it's clear that Fuller did not intend for Lorca to be from the MU.